


More Than the Sum of Your Parts

by Hisha



Series: The Rainbow Connection [1]
Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Animal Death, Depends where the mood takes us really, Gen, Original Character-centric, Rating May Change, Set in movie-verse because I'm more familiar with it, Tags May Change
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-12 06:43:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17462567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hisha/pseuds/Hisha
Summary: Not everything was destroyed in the Life Foundation disaster. One surviving employee snuck some samples out amongst all the chaos and now, long after the fact, the result of their new experiment yearns for freedom.





	1. Chapter 1

Em had only been staying at her aunt&uncle's place for a short while to be closer to college when she started looking for a part-time job. College wasn't cheap after all. Yes she wasn't obligated to pay rent too, at least, but still.

“I can help you with that”, her aunt had told her over dinner when she had mentioned her job hunting.

Em's first reaction had been to refuse her aunt's offer, as she did not want to feel even more indebted to her than she already did.

It took a couple months to convince her. And it just so happened that her aunt's friend worked at a laboratory outside San Francisco that could use an extra set of hands. It was a janitor job rather than actual lab work but hey, it was an honest job.

Some time had passed and now the college student was standing in front of the security guard outside the lab.

“Hello”, she said, “I- my name's Emerald Black and-”

“Yeah, it sure is”, the guard interrupted with sarcasm so heavy it could have formed a black hole.

Em kept going, ignoring the comment :

“Dr.Flores told me to ask for her.”

He didn't seem convinced. At least until Dr.Flores herself showed up.

“Oh, you must be Emerald, right?” she asked. “Let her in, Greg, I'll take it from here.”

Once inside the building, Dr.Flores briefly showed her friend's niece around before it was officially time for the latter's new job to actually start.

 

Some hours later, Em had mopped most of the floors and emptied quite a few trash bins when she came across a door labeled #13.

“Let's go clean up in there”, she muttered to herself as she grabbed the door handle.

It turned out to be locked. Was this part of the building even used? The faint sounds of human voices she caught by pressing her ear to the door indicated that it was. She couldn't make out what they were actually saying, though.

Footsteps coming from behind her made Em jerk away from the door and do her best impression of someone who wasn't just trying to listen in on something she wasn't supposed to. Turned out the footsteps belonged to a random employee who didn't even look in her direction at all while passing by.

Her shift was nearing its end, but Em took a mental note to ask about door #13 tomorrow.

 

The next day, after her classes and some walking, Em was back at work. This time, she got put in charge of cleaning the cages of the lab animals, one of which was an adorable white dog that kept wagging its tail really hard whenever the young woman so much as looked in its direction. She stopped what she was doing to reach through the bars and try to pet it.

“Good doggo”, she said. “I wish I could take you with me... Well, if it were up to me I'd break all of you outta here.”

“Better not if you wanna keep your job”, warned another employee Em hadn't heard enter, distracted as she was by the good dog. “Also please move, I have to bring that dog to section 13.”

This peaked Em's interest.

“I saw a door 13 yesterday but it was locked. Must be the section, right? What do they do in there?”

“Beats me”, the other said. “...I shouldn't talk about this”, they whispered, “but they say a couple former Life Foundation people are workin' in there now on... god knows what. But they keep requesting new test animals from time to time. I got a bad feeling about this.”

Em remembered when the Life Foundation rocket incident made the news. The details were pretty sketchy then and still were now.

The other employee said goodbye and left with the dog without offering any other comment. And now Em _really_ needed to find out what was beyond door #13.

And only a couple days earlier, she thought this job would be pretty boring...

 

Over the next few weeks, Em asked Dr.Flores about section 13 but did not get much answers, as the scientist worked in a completely different part of the facility. The young woman was tempted to interrogate everyone she could, but felt it probably would arouse suspicion.

One day, when passing near the mysterious door, it opened and a man she didn't recognise got out and closed it behind him.

“Oh, hi”, he blurted out when he noticed Em's presence.

“Hi. What do y'all even do in there?”

“Well... it's kind of a long story and I'm in a rush right now, so...”

He hurried into another exit and out of the room. As soon as he was out of sight, Em tried the door : he had indeed forgotten to lock it. She took her little cart of cleaning supply with her into section 13 so that if anyone asked, she could just say she went in there to do her job.

The “section” turned out to be a single room. Two glass panels formed a a large cage in the corner. In front of that cage stood a couple desks holding various equipment. Shelves on the wall held a variety of medicines.

As Em got closer to the glass cage, the white dog laying inside woke up and stuck its snout to the inside of the panel as though it was trying to phase through it. The human crouched down to get closer to the dog's eye level and put her palm on the glass. The dog put one of its front paws up, trying to reach the hand. There was a panel that looked like it could slide open, but it didn't budge when she tried.

“What do they need you for, buddy?” Em asked. “And there are more than one person working here, right? Have the others already gone home?”

Well, it _was_ getting late.

She got back up and took a look at the rest of the room. A closet in another corner was almost full of identical containers all labelled “phenethylamine”. She was pretty sure she had heard one of her professors mention that very chemical at some point during a lecture. What were the people here trying to achieve with it though?

Em heard the door open and instantly rushed back to her cleaning supplies.

“The hell are you doing in there?” asked the same man from earlier.

“Oh, hum, the-the door was opened so I figured I should... do some cleaning in there?”

There was a long pause, followed by a deep sigh from the scientist who adjusted his lab coat and sat at one of the desks.

“What did you see?” he asked.

“Just a dog. Why?”

“Don't worry about it.”

“What's all the phenethylamine for?”

“13-FU53 needs it.”

“You mean the dog?”

“...Not exactly.”

The aforementioned animal, who was standing still the second before, suddenly collapsed to the floor with a thud the glass barrier rendered almost imperceptible. The scientist swore under his breath.

“Why don't you make yourself useful and bring it another animal?”

“What did you do to that dog?!”

“Bring another one and we might save it! NOW!”

The man angrily gestured to the door as he shouted the command and Em had no choice but to comply. She ran through, leaving her supplies behind, and picked up the first guinea pig she could get her hands on. When she got back, the poor dog was still in the exact same position.

“Just put the critter in there”, the scientist instructed while tapping a few buttons on a console on his desk. Some kind of strange goo was forming on the surface of the dog's body. This growing mass of unknown matter was constantly moving, streaks of blue, yellow and black briefly forming abstract shapes that would soon shift and change before the human eye could properly make them out. Em could swear she saw brief glimpses of other colours in there too...

“Don't just stand there!” the man shouted. “Give it the critter now before it dies too!”

This time, the sliding panel did slide open, but only slightly. Em reluctantly pushed the trembling (or was she the one trembling?) guinea pig into the opening. The goo crawled towards it faster than she thought it could, and despite the scientist yelling at her to close the thing now _you idiot_ , it got out of the cage and onto Em herself, ignoring the guinea pig completely. Soon, the strangely-coloured thing disappeared completely from view.

“Oh shit”, he swore. “Fuck. 13-FU53 is in you. Now I can't let you leave.”

“But I have classes tomorrow!”

“You got bigger problems than that now. Get in the cage.”

“What?!”

“If I let you out with the symbiote in you it would put everyone at risk. At least here we can make sure it doesn't hurt anyone. We'll... we'll find a way to make it go into another host.”

 

A while and a few animals snuck into the glass cage with Em later, and the symbiote still hadn't budged or manifested itself in any way.

“Hey, hum... what's your name?”

“Em”, the young woman responded from her position sitting against the wall of her cage.

“I'm sorry Em. It's just... I've been working on that project for some time now and really didn't want to see it die. Also it never latched onto any of us like that, I didn't think it would... do that.”

“Are you sorry enough to let me go?”

It was more of a rhetorical question, but he replied anyway while she pulled absentmindedly at the collar of her own shirt.

“Can't let it outside the lab, sorry. I'll talk to the bosses and make sure you get payed overtime for your troubles. That's the least I can do until we can get it to pick another host.”

“Can you at least tell me what 'it' is?”

The guinea pigs in the cage with her started showing interest in the water bowl in the corner. The dog... appeared to be breathing, albeit so faintly it was very hard to notice.

Well, at least it was still alive so it wasn't all bad news.

“I'm not supposed to tell you, it's all... Ah, fuck it. It's too late for secrets. When I fled the Life Foundation... incident, I took some samples with me. And here we've been studying those. And trying to remake a full symbiote out of them. Took a while to do, but then again some of the samples were already dead when I took them so I'm still surprised it worked at all.”

“And you created that thing for...?”

“It was a team effort. We just... fused bits of alien goo together and hoped it worked, really.”

Em started asking for clarifications when she got distracted by the dog waking up.

“That's weird, the man commented. If the dog is ok, why did it leave it?”

The dog walked to Em and sat in front of her, so she started petting it. The scientist got up from his desk and told her he was going to get her some food. Speaking of food, those guinea pigs over there were starting to look delicious...

Em shook her head in an attempt to chase the thought.

“What the hell, Em?” she whispered to herself.

When the scientist got back, she asked him to remove the animals just in case.

 

It was a few hours later, in the middle of the night, alone and half-asleep on a blanket covered in dog hairs on the floor, that Em first heard the voice.

**I'm your symbiote. Don't tell them you can hear me.**

Her eyes were wide open now. Did she dream that?

**First attempt didn't go well for us but hey. Let's try to get out of here again.**

Em looked around her to try and find the source of the voice, but no-one was here right now. Did the night shift guy go to the bathroom? Maybe she should do that too.

**I've been in this cage all my life, Em. I know everyone's routines. Dr.Johnson always leaves for about ten minutes around that time. If we don't escape now we won't get another opportunity until tomorrow.**

Was she having auditory hallucinations now? Wait, the voice had information Em didn't have, so it couldn't come from her, right? Was it really the symbiote talking?

“Wait, if you're actually real then... Holy shit” she muttered to herself. “That's- you're not just... You're fuckin' _sentient_!”

**You're stronger than the other hosts, maybe we can do something! And then I'll finally see the outside world for real! Em? Em are you even listening?**

Em started banging on the glass and trying to move the sliding panel from the inside, but of course it was pointless. And Dr.Johnson came back, asking what she was doing.

“I-I need the bathroom!” she blurted out.

The scientist told her to wait here while he looked for a good container she could use.

**How about a new plan? Maybe if we grab his hand when he gives you the thing I can take _him_ and then get you out.**

Em nodded and patiently waited for the doctor to come back again. When he did, he opened the glass panel just enough to slide the relatively small container inside... Then his eyes widened in horror when the young woman grabbed his fingers and the creature he'd been studying transferred between them. He continued to watch on as his body stumbled towards the control screen like a puppet being controlled by a not-very-skilled puppeteer. Eventually, the symbiote managed to make him unlock the cage fully, then grab Em's arm as she approached. Then Dr.Johnson collapsed onto the floor.

The creature was back in her body now. Together, they kicked the locked door of room 13 right off its hinges, came back to the desk to pick up Em's phone that had been confiscated earlier, and ran faster than she ever thought she could. When the alarm started blaring, the young woman was already nearly outside with the night guard and their ferocious-looking dog blocking her path. Without even thinking about it, she leapt to the side and above the barriers that were supposed to prevent entry. The guard and their dog pursued her into the night until she got close too the nearby city to keep chasing her without attracting attention.

Her run slowed down into a very weak walk, and then she collapsed under a street lamp, her short brown hair stuck to the sides of her face by sweat.

**Holy shit. We're-we're outside! We actually did it!**

Em was too out of breath to reply to her passenger. She sat up and checked her phone. Her aunt and uncle had each left her thousands of missed calls and messages.

“Boy you really took me for a wild ride, huh?” she said once her breathing had mostly returned to normal. She tried to wipe the sweat on her face with her sleeve, but her shirt was also drenched. Gross.

**But we're free now.**

“Yeah, true. Next time you need help, ask first.”

**I really hope there won't be a next time.**

Em put her phone to her ear so it looked like she was talking into it.

“Do you always need to be inside something else?”

**Yes. Or I die.**

“Ok. We gotta find you another host then.”

**Why? We make such a great team!**

“They'll be looking for me.”

**We escaped 'em before, we can do it again.**

“I can't do that forever, dude.”

The other fell silent. Em got up and started her phone's GPS app to find her way back to her aunt&uncle's flat. There were people and cars in the street even at this hour, just like in any big city, but no-one really paid much attention to her even as she whispered to the symbiote :

“I'll find you a home, I swear.”

Nearby, a stray three-legged dog was sniffing a garbage disposal bin in an alley.

 

Em's relatives were still awake when she got to their apartment, and they were both relieved to see her again and furious at her for making them worry in equal measure.

“Where the hell were you?” her uncle asked. “We've been trying to reach you for ages!”

“What happened to you?” her aunt continued. “No offense but you don't look so good.”

“I, hum... ran into some problems at work. It-it's complicated... one experiment... went wrong? We had to evacuate.”

The others' fury seemed to melt away at this to only leave worry. They asked their niece once more if she was ok.

“I'm... alright. But I think... I don't- I don't wanna work there anymore.”

She felt so exhausted and... empty. All she wanted was take a shower and go to sleep. Which she finally did once it was obvious to her relatives that they wouldn't get anything else from her at this point.

 

Em had barely slept at all when her alarm rang. In her sleep-deprived state, she couldn't tell anymore whether the previous events were a dream or not. And she had almost successfully convinced herself it was until she was on her way back from her classes and someone grabbed and pulled her into their van as she walked past.

The man wore a purple shirt, was easily twice her size and practically threw her into the passenger seat before pointing a gun to her face.

“We need the test subject back”, he told her.

She put her shaking hands up.

“They're n-not here anymore! I swear! P-please put that thing down...”

“What?”

“I passed them on to-to a stray dog after escaping last night!”

His gun still firmly pointed at her, he used his free hand to produce another device from his pocket and pushed a button on it. It made a loud and extremely obnoxious noise but didn't do much else.

“Wow. You really did give it up.”

He turned the noise maker off.

“Where is it now?”

“I... I don't know.”

The fact he referred to the symbiote as an “it” didn't quite sit well with Em but she chose not to argue with a man who still had a gun on her.

“You have no idea what you set loose into the world, do you Miss Black?”

She didn't know what to respond.

Eventually, the man chose to let her go, as there was no point in keeping her, but made her swear not to say anything to anyone about the whole affair or he would come after her again. Once she agreed, he opened the door to his van and she walked away, her heart pounding as fast as when ran away from the lab. The henchman's word echoed into her head. What exactly did he mean? Did she make a huge mistake?

 

When Eddie left his workplace that evening, some burly guy in a dark jacket and purple shirt was waiting by his motorbike.

**Who the hell is that guy?**

“Eddie Brock, right?” the stranger asked.

“Can I help you or...?” Eddie said.

He got a glimpse of something hidden under the other man's jacket. Could be a holster for something.

**If he tries anything we should eat him.**

“I've heard you have some experience dealing with... well, aliens.”

**Oh, you have experience alright...**

Eddie did his best to keep a straight face at his symbiote's comment.

“What gave you that idea?” he asked the other man.

“Let's cut the bullshit, Brock. The firm I work for got its hands on some alien goop a while back and now another employee set the result of their work loose on the city.”

“Excuse me?”

“They've created another symbiote. Don't ask me how. Can you help me find it before it does too much damage?”

 **This doesn't sound good** , Venom commented.

“Yeah, we don't want a carnage”, Eddie agreed.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Em's guardians were working a bit late so she came back to an empty home. She took off her shoes then noticed the appartment's resident calico cat sitting on the other side of the window, waiting to be let back in. So she opened the window and the cat instantly jumped in and rubbed itself again the human's legs.

“Hey girl”, she said. “Missed you too.”

A familiar multi-coloured goo appeared on the feline's head and formed a small growth.

“You?! What are you doing in my auntie's cat? And what happened to the dog?”

The cat sat down and meowed.

“...You can't talk when you're a kitty, can you”, Em sighed.

She crouched down and extended her hand.

“Alright, get in there so you can tell me what happened.”

The cat didn't budge and neither did the “growth” on its head. The colours weren't shifting anymore like when the symbiote was outside its host last night ; they had settled into a random pattern that looked like someone had dropped blue and yellow paint on a dark background. When Em touched it directly, the symbiote finally traveled back to her.

“Hey”, she said hesitantly after after a few seconds of pause. “Welcome back.”

She gave the now perfectly normal cat a few pats, then got up again.

“So, what happened?”

**Three-Legs and I weren't compatible... so I went through a couple other hosts to find you again.**

“They're looking for you. Just earlier I was... interrogated by this guy and... I had to tell him you weren't with me anymore.”

**So they don't know we're back together yet. Good.**

“Ok, you- I mean, I appreciate you looking on the bright side, I really do, but-”

**Can we have food? I've barely eaten and your organs are starting to look delicious.**

“Dude, I need those!”

The apartment door suddenly opened on Em's uncle.

“Sorry I'm a bit late” he appologised.

“It's alright, I just got back too” she explained while taking her bag off her shoulder and into her hand. “I'll... go study for a bit.”

She moved to the little bedroom that had been set up for her and closed the door firmly behind her.

“Ok, what was that thing What's-His-Face said you needed, again?” she asked quietly while setting her bag down on the sofa bed and opening it.

**Phenethylamine.**

“Thank you.”

**It was in your memory.**

“You can see what's in my memories?”

**If I try, yes.**

“Please don't do that.”

**Why?**

“I don't like having others go through my things without permission.”

** No-one has ever asked  _me_ permission for anything. **

“That's... sad. And explains a lot.”

Em's uncle knocked on the door.

“Emerald? Who are you talking to?”

“I'm... on the phone.”

“Since when do you actually use your phone as a phone?”

“We- we'll talk later, ok?”

At least he didn't open the door.

Em took her laptop from her bag and set it on the small desk right next to the bed.

**Oh, this is pretty** , the symbiote said once the young woman's laptop wallpaper showed up on the screen. It was a picture of a double rainbow she had taken back home some time ago.

“Yeah, those are rainbows, sometimes they happen when sunlight hit raindrops the right way. I took that pic 'cause I'm-”

She almost said it was because she was gay, but she wasn't sure the other would fully get the joke. Not without going through her mind and memories again anyway.

“...'Cause it looked nice”, she said instead.

**I've never seen that many colours in one place before...**

“You're pretty colourful yourself. If you hadn't been coming right at me I probably would have thought it was really cool, but you know... you didn't exactly give me time to think.”

Soon, she had both biochemistry lecture notes and the internet opened to look up phenethylamine.

“There, I knew it sounded familiar... 'Also known as PEA'... neurotransmitter... Great, how do we get that _without_ removing someone's brain?”

**Is that also something I'm not allowed to do?**

“It is. 'Cause that would kill them and... that's bad.”

**If you say so.**

Em was starting to understand the words of the man in purple now. Her new... friend? Had no sense of right or wrong. They did have a taste for brains though, it seemed.

“Oh wait, there's some PEA in chocolate! Finally some good news!”

She went to pick up a cardboard box under the bed that contained her personal secret stash of chocolates she had brought with her when moving away from her parents' home. She sat down on the bed and opened the box.

“Wait do you have to eat separately from me or can you just-”

Her hands tore through the wrapper of one bar on their own.

“Are you- stop that! I can do it myself!”

The symbiote gave her back control.

**Is there anything I'm allowed to do? At all?**

“You _can_ do stuff, you just... have to respect others' boundaries. I'm sure you'll get the hang of it.”

It only took a few seconds to empty out the stash, which certainly was a record even for Em. Then there was another knock at the door ; she shouted she was busy in response.

“I got pizzas for us on my way back”, her aunt told her through the door.

“...Comin'!”

 

**Why is everything dead?**

Em couldn't reply to the symbiote's question, not in front of her aunt&uncle. So she focused on her last slice of pizza. But it wasn't enough.

She got up from the dinner table to go through the fridge and grab the first tupperware of leftovers she could see.

“Emerald?” her aunt called.

“I... didn't have time to get lunch today so now I'm starving.”

The first part was a lie, which she felt a bit bad about. However she couldn't just tell them she was hosting a very hungry sentient multicolored goo, no matter how interesting it would make the conversation.

She picked up a fork from the cutlery drawer and went to town on those leftovers.

**Human food is weird. Why do you eat dead stuff?**

The symbiote's comments made Em wonder if they wouldn't be better off bounded to the cat and feeding on live mice... but she could keep a closer eye on this strange being if she allowed them to stay with her, right? She needed some time to think about this.

She opened the fridge again and was reminded by her uncle that she should leave something in it for tomorrow. She reluctantly closed the door again and made a mental note to go to the nearest 24/7 store later.

“Hey, auntie? You still got that old bluetooth earpiece thingy?”

 

Once her relatives had gone to bed, Em sneaked out and put on her aunt's earpiece.

“Ok, I should have asked earlier, I know, but like... what do I call you? Names, pronouns, all that.”

**I... I've only ever been an experiment code name...**

“You deserve better than that.”

**Thank you. Maybe a new name would be good. What do you think?**

“I think _you_ should get to decide your new identity.”

She walked down the street and into the night.

“What about pronouns though? I've been calling you a 'they' but do you have a preference?”

**As long as it's not “it”... That's what they called me back there, didn't they?. I want to leave that life behind. Far behind.**

“Alright.”

They both stayed quiet until they reached the store and Em picked up a bunch of chocolate.

“First you cost me my job, now you're gonna cost me a lot of money”, she mumbled, making her way to the checkout with her arms full of chocolatey goodness.

**I still think it was worth it. The outside world is so pretty.**

“You've barely seen anything.”

**I've spent all my life in a cage, Em. Anything new is beautiful to me.**

The young woman dropped all her items in front of the cashier for them to scan everything. They were mostly quiet except for after they had rung the fifth or so bar when they uttered one single comment :

“Bad break-up?”

“...It's a long story”, she replied.

She stared at the total for a few seconds before paying. She needed to find another job quick.

Once all of her purchases were in a bag, she bid the cashier goodbye and headed outside.

**Chocolate is good. I like it. But I still hope we'll be able to catch something alive.**

“How did they feed you back there? Did they just-”

In her distraction, Em bumped into someone and dropped her shopping bag on the asphalt ; she apologised and went to pick it up but the other person was faster.

“There you go”, he said in a New York accent as he handed her the bag. He was wearing a lot of small bracelets and a dark hoodie. Em grabbed her stuff back and thanked him.

 **There's something... strangely familiar about this guy** , the symbiote commented.

“Dark chocolate is better”, the man in the hoodie said.

Em pointed out that his statement was very subjective and everyone had different tastes before starting to walk away.

“Your friend will thank me later!” the man called out to her.

She froze mid-step. When she turned to look back, the other person was already gone from view.

**...Was he...talking about me?**

“How? He can't just... know. Can he? He- he probably just assumed this is too much chocolate for one person so it must be for sharing. And, well, it is. Everything- everything's alright. Nothing to fear. At all. Right?”

The young woman did not waste any more time outside and went back to the safety of her room as quickly as she could without drawing attention to herself.

 

 **Are we going to tell the other guy that the symbiote is back with her?** Venom asked Eddie as they hid some distance away from miss Black, hidden behind a parked SUV.

“Maybe later”, the human replied. “Let's, you know, observe a little bit and see what they do.”

**She was quick to figure out the chocolate thing.**

“Looks like a good sign to me. But we gotta be ready to intervene if things are about to get ugly.”

**You know we are.**

The man in the purple shirt had already given Black's address to Eddie, so there was no need to follow her home. However, staying in the area in case something happened seemed like a good idea. Might have to call in sick to work in the morning though.

**She might be handling the beginning of symbiosis better than you did, Eddie.**

“Hey, in my defense, I was already in a pretty bad place before you showed up, alright?”

**I know.**

They both decided to get into the store and buy some chocolate themselves. If they had to keep watch in the neighbourhood, might as well have some snacks while doing it.

 

Em woke up the next morning to the cat sitting right next to her on the bed.

“Hi,” she said, sitting up to pet it.

Wait, her door was closed, so how did-

The familiar goo started to pour out of the animal.

“Is that what you're gonna do when I sleep? Go be a cat? Cats need sleep too you know.”

The symbiote got back to the human's hand and then disappeared into... wherever in her body the symbiote goes. The cat kneaded a piece of the blanket with its front paws for a few seconds before laying down on it in a near-perfect cat circle.

**I was bored so we went around the neighbourhood. There are less rats in it now.**

“Careful not to decimate the population or there won't be any more for you.”

**We'll keep that in mind. But there's something else too.**

“What?”

**The guy. The one who picked up our bag. He was still there.**

“...You think he like, works for them or?”

**Possible. But there's something else about him too. I've never sensed anything like it before...**

Before the symbiote could elaborate, Em's aunt knocked on the door to ask her if she could come here for a second. Her dead serious tone didn't bode well, but what choice did Em have?

She got up and opened the door. Her aunt informed her she had called her friend Dr.Flores.

_Shit._

“She said there _was_ an alarm that night, but you were supposed to have left long before it went off.”

“I... was doing extra hours. I probably should have told you about that. Sorry.”

“Care to finally tell me what happened?”

**Don't!**

Em had no intention to. She did promise not to tell anyone, didn't she?

“I'm- I'm still not sure. Ask your friend.”

The older woman didn't seem entirely convinced.

“Why didn't you reply to any of our messages?” she asked.

“Oh, it's- it's a whole thing. I, hum, had lost my phone at some point? And when I found it again I was too busy to check it, so...”

Em's aunt pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and index finger, raising her glasses upwards in doing so.

“And my sister swore you wouldn't cause us any worry...”

“...Sorry. Sometimes... unexpected stuff happens.”

“You didn't do anything wrong, did you?”

“No. I swear.”

And she meant it. Yes, breaking the symbiote out wasn't the reasonable thing to do, but it wasn't _wrong_ , was it? What was wrong was keeping a sentient being locked up and experimented on against their will.

“Alright. I guess I just have to trust you. Your mother's always been going on about what a good kid you are and when has she ever been wrong?”

Em wished she could reply “when she assumed I was straight”, but now wasn't the time to come out, probably. Instead she politely asked her aunt to let her pass so she could get breakfast and ready for college. She obliged, but when her niece was only a few steps away, she told her :

“One guy was sent to the hospital, apparently.”

This stopped Em right in her tracks and made her turn around to face her aunt again.

“Wait, what?”

“You didn't know?”

She shook her head no.

“...I see. Anyway, I wouldn't want to make you late. Have a good day, Em.”

 **It must be Doctor Johnson in the hospital** , the symbiote said once Em was in the kitchen. **When we're not compatible enough with a host... bad stuff can happen.**

**But we weren't bounded for very long so he might recover.**

“Might?” the host repeated in a barely-audible whisper.

**I sense conflicting emotions.**

Em focused on pouring herself some orange juice. Maybe she'll find time to talk about her feelings later.

**He didn't die right away so I'd say he's resilient enough to stay alive. But he will suffer for what his team did. Does that make you feel better?**

She didn't know what to reply.

 

The recent events sure didn't make focusing on the morning lecture easier. And Em's right neighbour seemed to have actually fallen asleep in a pretending-to-take-notes position. Should she wake them up or let her clearly sleep-deprived fellow student have a snooze?

She opted for the latter. The other students would all be more than happy to share their notes later if needed. Em felt she might need their help too.

Once the lecture was finally over and Em started packing her stuff, the symbiote finally spoke again.

**All of this was very interesting.**

Em replied with a noncommittal hum. Then she woke up her neighbour on her way out.

**The outside world is... so big. There's so much stuff to learn.**

She nodded slightly in agreement as she headed to the nearest bathroom.

**I'm glad I met you. We wouldn't be there learning about the world otherwise.**

Em couldn't help but smile at this. She opened the door to the bathroom. Only one of the stalls were occupied.

**You did the right thing, Em.**

She walked up to one of the mirrors and mouthed a thank you.

 **No, you** , the symbiote insisted.

A few minutes later, Em washed her hand then headed to the door. The other student there was holding it for her, so she thanked her as she passed.

And noticed the small rainbow bracelet the other was wearing on her right wrist. Em paused, smiled and gave her a knowing nod. She smiled back.

 

Later that day, as Em was walking towards her bus stop, she spotted a guy from her class talking to the girl from earlier. And given how she was blatantly looking at her phone and walking faster, she clearly didn't want to talk to him.

**I don't like this guy.**

Neither did Em, and the way he caught up with the other girl and grabbed her arm sure didn't help.

 **We should do something** , the symbiote stated. Their host agreed and before she knew it her hands were firmly grabbing the guy's free arm and squeezing until the pain made him release his own grasp.

The girl with the rainbow bracelet took this opportunity to run away as though her life depended on it.

“What the hell was that for?!” the guy asked Em once she let go of his arm.

“You know exactly what for” she replied.

“We were just talking!” he lied, massaging his own arm like he was trying to take the residual pain away.

“Not buying it.”

“We just can't even talk to girls anym-”

He stopped mid-word when Em- no, _Em and her symbiote_ grabbed him by the collar and slammed him into the back of the bus stop, making the whole struture shake dangerously. Blue and yellow goo started to appear around her hand. The black part in-between those colours was almost non-existent.

“You know what? Maybe you shouldn't. 'Cause you can't take a fuckin' hint.”

She lifted him up like he weighted nothing and threw him down onto the asphalt.

**Can we eat this one?**

“We can't just-” Em began.

Her bus arrived and she ran to it without any more word. She adjusted the strap of her bag on her shoulder while the goo receded into her and disappeared again.

Em took a seat and put on the bluetooth earpiece. She pretended to tap something on her phone for a second, then muttered :

“So much for laying low...”

**We should have just eaten him.**

“That would have been worse. We're supposed to... like... not attract attention and...”

They both noticed the man from last night getting onto the bus and passing them by.

Em buried her face into her hands. Great. More problems.

 **You've still done the right thing** , the symbiote assured her.

She took a quick glance behind her ; the man was sitting a few seats behind and looking at the window.

**We should jump off.**

Em didn't, of course. Instead she stayed on the bus for one more stop than usual, got off and kept walking. She never looked back but she knew the man was still some distance behind her. She was nearing the edge of the city now.

**What are you doing? 'Cause it doesn't seem to be working. We should give him a lesson too. Together we're stronger than we'd ever be when separated. You've felt it. You know it.**

The reasonable thing to do would probably be to flee and avoid confrontation and Em knew it ; yet she headed down an alley and waited for the stalker to follow. This was something she would never have even considered doing alone, but she wasn't alone.

She set her bag down against a wall so it wouldn't encumber her.

As he showed up, she ran toward him, ready to slam him into the ground, but in the blink of an eye a familiar-looking black goo covered him completely, turning him into a hulking beast with huge pointy teeth and oddly-shaped white eyes. The creature turned part of his arm into a shield Em ran straight into ; then he used that same shield to push her away, which made her lose balance and fall on her butt.

“Wha- you're- I've seen you online!” she exclaimed.

**They're like us!**

“What?”

**That's what I was feeling! They're like us! A human and their goo!**

Venom extended a hand to Em to help her up and she accepted.

“Nice to, hum, meet you?” she said.

“ **Likewise** ”, Venom replied.

The black goo eventually receded into their host.

“My, hum, friend thinks they're the same species”, Em told the other human. “Same as your friend, I mean.”

“They're right.”

“And that's why you've been following us?”

“We've been asked to help in finding your symbiote but you know what? Screw this. We've seen very, very bad symbiotes and hosts before but you guys seem alright.”

“...Thanks? I guess?”

“I'll even show you where to get live animals for cheap for your buddy.”

**Wow, I actually like this guy. Didn't see that coming.**

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for animal death. It's not overly graphic but I will still add it to the fic's tags.

“Is it really necessary?” Em asked Eddie as he attached a cage to his motorbike.

Said cage contained a couple of live bunnies he'd just purchased.

“Chocolate isn't always enough, ya know. They also need like, organs and stuff from time to time. Or they'll start eating yours from the inside. I know 'cause I almost died when Ve- Yes, I know but it's- that's not the point, alright? I'm just tellin' her what happened.”

“...Actually she did mention something about my organs at some point.”

“That's more warning than I got. What? It's true.”

**Can we just eat** _ **now**_ **?** Em's symbiote asked.

“You wanna be spotted?” she replied to them. “'Cause that's how you get spotted.”

“Huh? Oh, you're talking to... right. Anyway I better get you back to your place.”

Eddie handed Em his helmet and she put it on.

**I'm guessing we'll eat before actually reaching the apartment?**

The two humans climbed onto the bike and drove off. Some time later, they reached Em's neighbourhood, left Eddie's vehicle & helmet near the very building she lived in and entered it. The hallway was thankfully deserted.

Eddie handed the cage to Em, who hesitated for a moment before taking it and observing the rabbits again.

“I wish I could just... keep 'em”, she said. “They're so cute and... delicious... wait-”

**Let me handle this.**

The symbiote manifested themself around their host's head, engulfing it in goo that quickly solidified into a brand new face. Now Em was looking through eyes that weren't hers while her still normal-looking hands set the cage down on the floor, opened it and grabbed a rather large rabbit. Jaws with oversized pointy teeth that weren't hers latched onto the poor animal and swallowed it whole.

Em could still feel some fur on the back of her throat after her symbiote had receded back into her. This made her cough ; Eddie produced a small water bottle from his jack pocket and gave it to her. She took a big gulp before thanking him and giving him the bottle back.

“I hate this...” she whined.

**But you eat animals all the time. You just have someone else kill and cut them up for you.**

“Hey, cut her some slack, will ya?” Eddie said, likely in response to his own symbiote.

He put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

“Gotta do what you gotta do”, he told her.

The sound of someone walking down the stairs made itself heard and was getting closer so they quickly said goodbye to each other and Eddie left with the remaining rabbit.

Then Em's uncle showed up with the trash.

“Oh, there you are!” he said. “We were starting to worry you'd disappear again.”

“Yeah, sorry, I was... Well, lots of unexpected sh- stuff showed up on the way home.”

“Oh?”

“I guess I should send you guys a message next time something makes me late, huh?”

“Yeah, that would be nice.”

He took the garbage outside then came back to climb the stairs with his niece.

 

“This one looked different”, Eddie commented as he got onto his bike.

**Like they cobbled pieces of several of us together and brought it to life** , Venom added.

“So like an alien version of Frankenstein's creature or somethin'?”

The engine of the bike started roaring and Eddie started to drive off.

**This girl is too squeamish for them. I am surprised these two are compatible at all.**

“She can get used to it. And didn't you say she was handling things better than I did?”

**Looks like she does not handle _everything_ better.**

“Everyone's different.”

They both remained silent for a while, focusing on the road.

The new symbiote's creators were bound to figure out Em was still the host eventually. They had to figure something out fast.

 

A few hours later, Em locked herself in the bathroom, stood in front of the mirror and took a deep breath.

“Alright. Do the thing.”

Her symbiote covered her head and formed a face again. All their colours were like zebra stripes across it. And to Em's surprised, they had three eyes of three slightly different shapes.

_Having three eyes didn't change my vision that much when_... Em said from within the symbiote.

“ **The middle one doesn't really work** ”, the symbiote said out loud through jagged pointy teeth, some of which were slightly different sizes or pointed at slightly different directions.

Em put her palm next to the reflection in the mirror, slightly brushing it but never hiding it.

_You're blind in one eye?_

“ **I'm honestly not sure if it comes from me or if my hosts' brains just can't handle a third eye. All of them had only two.** ”

_I guess it doesn't change much for us either way._

The symbiote slowly receded into their host again. The latter removed her hand from the mirror.

“That guy said they fused several samples together to make you. Guess that's why you have three eyes while Venom has two. You're a fusion.”

**So we're a double fusion then.**

“...I guess?”

 

The following day, as Em was waiting for her bus back home, the girl with the rainbow bracelet sat next to her at the stop's bench. Since last time, she had cut her red hair into a buzz cut.

“Hi”, she said. “I didn't have time to thank you for... you know. So, hum, thanks.”

“No probs”, Em said. “Girls like us gotta stick together.”

“Name's Ruby by the way.”

“...No way.”

“What?”

“My name's Emerald.”

“Get out. Really?”

“Just call me Em.”

**She's pretty cute isn't she?**

“Anyway”, Em continued, “if any guy ever bothers you again... you know... I can- I can help out.”

Ruby smiled and Em almost melted on the spot.

**Say something! Give her your number maybe?**

The host took her phone from her bag and did as her symbiote said but not without much hesitation and stuttering.

Then Ruby said she really needed to get going and stood up.

“It was nice talking to you, Em” she said.

“Have a- a good day- I mean evening. And hum, everything else too?”

**Nailed it...**

Both young women said goodbye, then Ruby walked away.

A bus appeared in the distance so Em stood up, ready to board it, but it turned out to be the wrong bus.

**Incoming troubles** , the symbiote warned her, to which she reacted with a surprised “huh?” before turning around and seeing the same guy who was harassing Ruby before. This time he had four other, stronger-looking guys with him, and they were fast approaching her position. And they didn't look friendly.

Before, she would have backed away and left to avoid troubles. But that was before. Now, she stood right where she was, watching them try to be as intimidating as they could. And, to be fair, had Em been alone, she would have been intimidated.

**I'm guessing we won't eat them either**.

“They're probably not safe to eat anyway”, she commented. “Too much toxic masculinity.”

She put her bag on the bench.

These frat bros towered over Em and yet, as they all encircled her she wasn't intimidated in the slightest. She had seen both in person and online what a human&symbiote collaboration could do. The time she was scared of men was over.

The tallest one lifted her small frame up, holding her on either side so she couldn't move her arms.

“So you thought you could beat up my bro, huh?”

He didn't think to secure her legs though, so she swung her foot right into his stomach, forcing him to release her has he clutched it in silent agony ; Em fell down on the ground where the others put their feet on her chest, stomach and legs and pushed down, making it hard to breath and preventing her from moving.

Dark tendrils with patches of blue and yellow sprouted from her body, pushed them away and onto the asphalt, then helped her up.

“What the actual hell?!” one of them exclaimed.

The symbiote covered Em fully, and now it was the duo's turn to grab the tallest guy (who was now shorter than them, to Em's greatest satisfaction), their hands on either side of him and one strong tendril tying his legs together.

“ **If any of you threaten us or anyone again or if you tell anyone what happened here** ”, they said together in one singular voice, “ **we will find you and then eat your kidney and both your eyes.** ”

“Shit, it's another one! Fuckin' run!”

The others got up and ran as fast as their legs could carry them.

“ **FIGHT US YOU COWARDS!** ” the duo roared.

They didn't bother chasing these guys though. They weren't worth the effort.

“ **Looks like you need better friends** ”, they said to the one remaining guy in their grasp.

They released him and let him run away screaming too ; the symbiote receded into Em just before her bus finally arrived.

Damn did it feel good to give those frat boys the fright of their lives. But Em and her friend couldn't help the nagging thought that their cover might be completely blown now.

 

And indeed it was. When Em woke up the next morning, she had received a text from Ruby asking her if she had seen a video entitled “New Venom???”

She immediately looked it up. It had been taken from too far away to really see any face properly and started right after the full suit up, but it wouldn't be hard for anyone who knew Em could put two and two together at the end of the video when her human form appeared again.

She texted back saying “I just did”. Not too long later, another replied arrived.

“Same bus stop

Weird, huh?”

She stared at the screen in silence, trying to think of a reply.

“It's you isn't it” Ruby continued.

**No point in denying it now, I guess** , the symbiote said.

“I helped a symbiote escape from a lab and now we live together and can turn into this” she typed.

She hesitated a moment before finally hitting “send”.

“What's their name?”

“Hasn't decided yet”

“Can I meet them”

“You sorta already have”

Em almost dropped her phone when it suddenly started buzzing. It was an incoming call from... her former workplace. She froze for a second.

**No!** her friend shouted in her head.

Even Em wasn't sure which one of them angrily pressed the red button and tossed the phone onto the sofa bed.

And then it started buzzing again.

There were no classes today and yet it already felt like it was going to be a very long day. She left the phone right where it was and left the room to get breakfast. When she came back to it, she had texts from Ruby and Eddie. Both suggesting to meet up for lunch.

 

Em ended up meeting Ruby and Eddie at the same place. They proceeded to order enough fries for a small army and sit at a table in a corner.

“That's not what I had in mind”, Ruby commented.

Em & Eddie both apologised.

“You-you both invited me and- well I didn't... want to say no and hum...” the former explained.

“Now you get to meet all four of us for price of two, huh?” Eddie chimed in before he started eating a whole bunch of fries.

“Wha-” Ruby started in confusion before she realised what he meant, “oh, you mean you and your... Hey, speaking of. Can Venom sign my notebook?”

She took a small notebook from the pocket of her cargo pants, opened it on a blank page and handed it to Eddie.

The latter shifted slightly in his seat and took a pen from his own pocket. Venom's black goo covered his writing hand so they could sign the page and give the notebook back. Ruby thanked them profusely. Em shoved a lot of fries in her mouth while watching the scene unfold.

She received a text message and checked it more to get rid of the notification icon than anything else. Then she grew really pale and slowly set her phone down on the table in front of her. Both the other humans sitting with her asked her if she was ok.

“It's... it's the lab again...” she explained, her voice barely audible over the background chatter of the other customers and working staff. “They- they say they'll give me my job back if... if...”

She couldn't even bring herself to finish the thought.

“They want you to give them your buddy back”, Eddie guessed.

**DON'T!**

“I- I won't! I can't! How could I-”

She hugged herself tight.

“You deserve better than this”, she whispered to her symbiote.

**Thank you, Em. Thank you.**

Ruby and Eddie each put a hand on one of her shoulders as if to give her and her comrade courage and the confirmation that they weren't alone.

“Hey”, Eddie said, “maybe I can, like. Help you find a different job. Maybe if I pretend you're my niece or something...”

“...Thanks.”

Ruby asked which lab and company were involved. After the others answered, she paused for a moment. She nodded slowly but still didn't utter another word.

**What are we gonna do now?**

“They'll- they might not come after you immediately if they're like, giving me time to think?” Em said. “But I have no idea how much time we actually have.”

“Doesn't sound too good, not gonna lie”, Eddie added. “And- no Venom, we're not doing that.”

“What did they say?” Ruby asked.

“'Eat them?'” Em guessed.

“...Huh, that's the gist of it, yeah.”

 

Em was seriously considering hiding out somewhere to avoid being spotted again. But before going through with it, she had to pick up some stuff from her aunt&uncle's apartment. They were currently out so she wouldn't have to explain what was going on or why Eddie Brock and some college student they didn't know were accompanying her.

As she went to unlock the door, she found it already unlocked.

She closed it again, turned to Ruby and told her something didn't feel right and she probably shouldn't stick around.

“What?” the redhead replied. “Why just me? What's wrong?”

Em picked up the other girl bridal style, brought her to the other end of the hallway where the stairs were and put her back on her feet there.

“Stay here. Just in case. Be right back.”

She ran back to the door and readied to open it, but it suddenly swung open from the inside.

Ruby peaked around the corner of the stairway and spotted two goons from the lab. Ruby really hoped they hadn't seen her, as if they did...

One of them activated a weird noise-making device that, while it didn't affect his colleague much, caused both Em and Eddie to fall to their knees screaming, bits of their symbiotes randomly appearing and convulsing and almost getting pushed away from their hosts.

Ruby gripped the handrail so hard her knuckles actually hurt ; she prepared to throw whatever was in the pocket at the goons, but they stopped the device before she did.

“Remember”, the other one, an intimidating woman in a ponytail, told her colleague, “not too long or it might fall appart and die.”

He still pushed the button again when the two hosts tried to stand back up. Then turned it off and on again in quick successions until his co-worker shot sedative syringes.

“Take the girl and go”, she instructed.

“What about Brock though?”

“They didn't ask for him. Let's just follow orders and get this over with. If Brock comes after us we'll just make noise again.”

Ruby hurried down the stairs as quietly as she could to avoid encountering the goons on their way out. She hid and waited for them to leave.

She knew exactly what to do now.

 

Em woke up back in the glass cage, only this time she actually had a small mattress under her. Two people in lab coats were observing her from their desk. Soon, a third, slightly older one arrived, saw the young woman there and turned to the other scientists :

“Don't tell me you still haven't separated that thing from its host yet.”

“We didn't want to risk killing it. Not before we've figured out how to-”

The older man interrupted the explanation with a dismissive hand wave.

“You know what? I've read all the reports and I don't think this whole operation's worth it. And I'm convinced Dr.Johnson somehow mixed up the original samples by accident. I mean, it has to be an accident. Who in their right mind would go and make... _this_ before even thinking about just cloning the one sample that was still alive? Had he done that first we wouldn't be in that situation. Just imagine the legal trouble we might be in from keeping her there with it?”

“We're right here”, Em spoke up, getting up from the mattress and standing in front of the sealed off feeding hole. “Stop talking about us like we weren't.”

“Oh, hi”, the older scientist said. “I'm Dr.White. Head of this facility.”

**I don't like him.**

“You should just give up on it”, Dr.White said. “And so should we. We've been sinking resources into it and for what? Keeping this... two-third undead thing alive? All the research on it is null and void because we only have a sample size of one. And no-one has managed to clone it to make more.”

A few tendrils sprouted from Em's shoulder and formed a mask-like, three-eyed face. This time, the pattern on it was more akin to the spots on a leopard's fur.

“ **I'm right here** ”, the symbiote said.

The two at the desk stared in silence ; they likely had never heard them talk before. Their boss seemed unfazed, though.

“This thing's held together with pure luck and I don't know. Alien black magic probably. It shouldn't even exist.”

The symbiote growled menacingly and Em balled up her hands into fists so tightly they were shaking.

Dr.White continued his rant, still adamantly refusing to even look in the symbiote's direction.

“We can't sell it 'cause we only have one and it's rubbish. All extra eye that don't even work and 'oh we can't do that, it might fall apart'. We can't make more. I think we'd be better off using our resources on literally anything else.”

“Sell it?” Em repeated, still staring him down. “To whom?”

“You don't actually expect me to tell you that, do you?”

He turned to the others and ordered them to get rid of their creation.

“But-”

“Just do it. We won't get anywhere with that project. It's too expensive and doesn't get us anywhere. Just do the noise thing.”

“ **Oh.** _That's_ **what the speakers in the ceiling are for... Sorry I dragged you into this, Em.** ”

“Wait-” Em started, but before she could finish, said speakers came to life and the face perched on her shoulder disappeared.

She clutched her ears as she slid down onto the glass, trying to block out the sound. It was like a part of her soul was forcefully ripped from her body.

Then the sound stopped suddenly.

“What are you doing here, pumpkin?” asked Dr.White's voice.

Em opened her eyes and slowly stood up, leaning onto the glass for balance. In the lab with everyone else now stood Ruby.

“What are you doing to her, dad?” she asked back.

_Dad?_

“Oh, don't worry, this won't hurt her. We're just helping her get rid of a parasite.”

She walked to the desk and looked at the equipment there.

“Couldn't do that some other way? 'Cause it looked a lot like torture to me.”

“Come on, you know your old man would never-”

“You just did. I saw it. You really think I'm that stupid?”

She gently shoved the others aside to have better access to the screens.

“Ruby!” her father shouted. “You don't know what you're doing!”

An alarm rang through the facility at that exact moment but she didn't let that distract her.

Her father grabbed her arm, but she had already pushed the buttons to open the cage. The next thing he knew, a fully-transformed human&symbiote duo forced him to release his grasp then stood between him and his daughter, turning part of their arm into a black shield with blue & yellow spikes all over it. Two tendrils sprouted from their back and nudged the other scientists towards the door. They took the hint and fled the room.

“ **Thank you, Ruby.** ”

“Girls like us gotta stick together, right?”

“Wait you know each o-” Dr.White started before being interrupted by the symbiote snarling at him and holding their shield dangerously close to his face, enough to scrape his glasses with the spikes.

“ **You're gonna let us go. Or you'll be in serious need of a few organs transplants.** ”

“Fine!” he said, quickly stepping away. “Just go already. You're not worth keeping anyway.”

“ **I'm good enough for Em. That's all that matters.** ”

They stepped forward, their shield still to him, forcing him to leave the room.

“ **Ruby? Where are Eddie and Venom? Are they alright?** ”

“What do you think this alarm is for?” Ruby smiled. “They're distracting the guards.”

“ **Don't they have noise makers?** ”

Ruby took the shattered remains of one from her pocket and showed it to the duo.

“Let's just say Venom got the drop on those goons this time. Didn't even have time to use their toy.”

The three of them quickly found Em's bag in a drawer and picked up as much phenethylamine as it could carry.

“ **Alright, time to get out. Climb on my back.** ”

Em & her symbiote took a knee to allow Ruby to climb on their back. Once she did so, a bunch of tendrils formed and solidified into a net-like structure to make sure she wouldn't fall off as they ran and leapt like a multicoloured feline across the building and over people evacuating.

They eventually found Venom as the latter was throwing one security guard onto another ;

then the little group ran away from the facility together. Once they were far enough, they let Ruby climb down onto her feet.

“ **I've chosen my name now** ”, the younger symbiote announced.

“So, what is it?” Ruby asked.

“ **Rainbow.** ”

Venom let out a flat “ **what.** ”

“ **That's my name.** ”

“ **It is... different.** ”

“I like it.”

“ **Thank you Ruby** ”, Rainbow said.

The two hosts reverted back to their human forms and Ruby gave Em her bag back. Em thanked everyone else again, took some phenethylamine from her bag and gave it to Eddie.

 


	4. Epilogue

“Be honest”, Em said seemingly to her phone, in reality to her symbiote. “Why Rainbow? 'Cause it's pretty and colourful? And gay?”

**It's important.**

“...Well, I mean, the symbol's important to me and people like me, but not everyone gets it.”

**Exactly.**

She stopped near the main entrance to the hospital and asked Rainbow to explain further.

**It's important in a way that some don't understand, but some do. I didn't matter to everyone at the lab, but I matter to you and our friends.**

“...Wow.”

**And also yes, it sounded pretty.**

Em chuckled at last part a bit before pocketing her phone and entering the building and going to the reception desk. She asked for Dr.Johnson, pretending to be a relative. Then she explained that no, she didn't mean a doctor working here, but a patient.

A few minutes later, she was standing in the scientist's hospital room. When he saw her approach, he did his best to sit up on his bed to greet her.

“How's life?” he asked.

“We're doin' alright. What about you?”

“Dr.Lewis says I'll be here a while but I'm likely to recover. I got so, so close to be one of those who got killed by their own creation... Wait, did you say 'we'? Is... it's still with you, isn't it.”

Rainbow covered their host completely, revealing their full three-eyed multicoloured glory towering over their bed-ridden creator.

“' **They' and 'she' are better** ”, they said. “ **And the name's Rainbow.** ”

“...O...Ok.”

They all remained silent for a moment. Then Dr.Johnson finally found something to say :

“So, hum... what happened since last time?”

Rainbow filled him in.

“Wow, White really did go there, huh?” he said. “Can you two keep a secret?”

They nodded.

“We never managed to clone the- I mean you... because I sabotaged all the cloning attempts.”

“ **What.** ”

“I got enough shady experiments and business practices when I was at the Life Foundation. And that didn't really end well. I didn't want to keep doing shady stuff. But then my new employer wanted me and my colleagues to make more... more you. For the military. I didn't want to do that. I wanted to turn a new leaf and actually do something that wouldn't hurt people, you know? But if I told them that at the time, I would have lost yet another job. Do you understand?”

“ **You made it so that the military wouldn't get to use creatures like us. But you made it look like it was a problem with** _ **me**_ **so you wouldn't be fired immediately.** ”

“Yeah.”

“ **Why didn't you just destroy me? Would have saved you some time.** ”

“I guess I couldn't bring myself to. Turned out pretty well for you in the end. Look at you now. Got yourself a perfect host and everything.”

“ **We're more than the sum of our parts.** ”

The scientist nodded.

“ **Em thinks you should apologise for keeping me- and us- in a cage.** ”

“Where else would I have- you know what, I'm not going to argue against that. You do have a point. I'm sorry.”

Em reverted to her human form and bid the man goodbye before leaving the room and the hospital.

“Hey Rain?” she said once she was outside again.

**Yes?**

“You know what you said earlier about us and... and our symbiosis? It applies to _you_ too. _You're_ more than the sum of your parts. Ruby's dad thought of you as- as just, like, bits and pieces or other symbiotes. But you're more than that. You're a whole. You're your own alien goo!”

**Thank you, Em.**

“Just stating facts.”

**Still an important reminder.**

“Anyway, wanna get home and watch cartoons? No mind-reading or memory searching. You don't want to get spoiled.”

**Sounds alright to me.**

 

 


End file.
